Emuge expanding US manufacturing facility

Emuge Corp., a manufacturer of high-performance taps, drills, end mills, and other rotary tools, has recently broken ground to build a 22,000ft2 expansion project that will double the size of its U.S. headquarters and manufacturing facility in West Boylston, Massachusetts. Marking a 35-year presence in the U.S. along with increased growth in North America, the Emuge expansion will include more manufacturing space and the addition of a PVD coating center. In addition, Emuge plans to expand its current Technology and Training Center, also located at the West Boylston facility.

"The expansion will allow us to better serve our customer base in the U.S. and Canada," says Bob Hellinger, president of Emuge Corp. "The growth we have experienced in our aerospace and power generation customer base has been significant in the past few years. The expanded facility will provide additional capacity to manufacture special solid carbide tooling domestically and allow us to provide customized solutions within our milling portfolio.”

Construction for the expanded facility began in September 2018, with completion slated for the second quarter of 2019. A grand opening celebration for the newly expanded Emuge headquarters and manufacturing facility will be announced in 2019.

Emuge currently has tool reconditioning capabilities in West Boylston for taps, end mills, and drills, combined with the ability to manufacture tools such as spot drills, chamfer mills, and make other round tool modifications.

Emuge Corp. is a wholly owned subsidiary of the 1,800+ employee German company EMUGE-Werk Richard Glimpel GmbH & Co. KG (Lauf, Germany) that has been the product technology and performance leader in their field for nearly 100 years. The company manufactures an extensive line of taps, thread mills, drills, end mills, toolholders, clamping devices and other rotary cutting tools ? over 40,000 items sold through distributors worldwide. Emuge also offers end-user technical support through a network of in-the-field engineers and in-house product specialists, all with extensive tooling and application experience.

Bruker to acquire Alicona Imaging GmbH

Billerica, Massachusetts – Bruker Corp. officials announced the signing of an agreement to purchase 100% of the shares of Alicona Imaging GmbH, a leading provider of optical-based metrology products based in Graz, Austria. Alicona's optical 3D metrology products are a perfect complement to Bruker's microCT, stylus profiler, white-light interferometry and atomic force microscope (AFM) product suite. The combined product offering broadens Bruker's application reach and offers customers an even more comprehensive selection of complementary metrology solutions to serve their materials research, engineering and high-precision quality assurance needs. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

"We are excited to add Alicona's unique technologies and strong brand to our set of metrology systems," says Bruker NANO Group President Dr. Mark R. Munch. "Alicona has led the industry in the development of focus variation technology and has delivered high-quality metrology products and manufacturing QA/QC solutions to the market that align nicely with our own products and our strengths in industrial metrology."

"We are very pleased to join Bruker," adds Dr. Stefan Scherer, co-CEO of Alicona. "We have built a strong company that delivers superior measurement solutions in laboratory and production environments, and we are looking forward to leveraging Bruker's global reach to serve an even wider customer base and help expand the Bruker portfolio to a wider set of manufacturing solutions."

"We have focused for 17 years on building the highest quality products and best-matched solutions to our customers' metrology problems," explains Dr. Manfred Prantl, co-CEO of Alicona. "The Alicona InfiniteFocus, µCMM, and collaborative robot products are leading examples of this innovative history that combine nicely into Bruker's growing family of application-enabling technologies."

"Over the last years Alicona has shown an impressive top-line growth and international expansion based on its leading technology," notes Philipp Jacobi, managing partner of Quadriga Capital Eigenkapitalberatung GmbH. "We are glad to have supported Alicona and its management team in such an important growth phase. Over the last 3 years Alicona's staff has almost doubled to over 150 employees and its product portfolio has significantly expanded. With Bruker, Alicona gains a strong industrial research and metrology partner and at the same time a new home, from where the company can continue its international growth plans."

These numbers and all data in this report are based on the totals reported by the companies participating in the CTMR program. The totals here represent the majority of the U.S. market for cutting tools.

“The September 2018 cutting tool industry data is still supporting strong sales. As the industry is enjoying this increased business volume, the majority of cutting tool manufacturers are coping with the challenges of limited manufacturing capacity, increasing material prices, shortages of available labor and global trade unrest because of imposed tariffs. In summary, it’s another sunny day in paradise,” says Brad Lawton, chairman of AMT’s Cutting Tool Product Group.

According to Johan Israelsson, senior vice president & head of global sales for Sandvik Applied Manufacturing Technologies, “2018 has been a very strong year for the cutting tools industry in most market segments. In some areas demand has been extremely strong such as in aerospace, defense, energy, and general engineering. At recent industry events, such as IMTS, the mood has been very positive as well. However, September does seem to show some deceleration, which we are also seeing in some of the European markets. With this, and although year-over-year numbers are still strong, we may see a slowing growth over the coming periods.”

The Cutting Tool Market Report is jointly compiled by AMT and USCTI, two trade associations representing the development, production and distribution of cutting tool technology and products. It provides a monthly statement on U.S. manufacturers’ consumption of the primary consumable in the manufacturing process – the cutting tool. Analysis of cutting tool consumption is a leading indicator of both upturns and downturns in U.S. manufacturing activity, as it is a true measure of actual production levels.

Historical data for the Cutting Tool Market Report is available dating back to January 2012. This collaboration of AMT and USCTI is the first step in the two associations working together to promote and support U.S.-based manufacturers of cutting tool technology.

The ValvTEX technology platform was created to reduce the delivery profile of transcatheter heart valves that require a valve skirt, whilst also offering some unique advantages. The solution involves custom low-profile fabric attached onto the valve frame without the need for sutures. Lower delivery profile is achieved by reducing the amount of fabric pleating during crimping, along with the reduction or elimination of sutures required to attach the fabric. Not only does this improve manufacturing time, but a further advantage from the attachment process is the ability to create an impermeable seal at select regions of the skirt, which can help inhibit paravalvular leakage.

Considering the increased interest in transcatheter product development to treat a greater range of structural heart conditions, the ValvTEX platform technology is ideally positioned to support next generation devices.